Saturday, July 27, 2013

I am going to have to close the windows soon - it is getting chilly!!!! Don't know where this weather came from, but it is very welcome compared to the heat of some days ago. Such a good day to get a few things done. I did some baking to take up to the cabin next week. My house smelled soooooo good - kind of like a bakery. Doesn't smell that way very often anymore.

And, of course, a good day for a little sewing. Have been sewing corners on the squares for the snowball quilt. The pieces I ordered from Glorious Color came (very quickly!!!) and I found quite a few in my stash so have a good variety. I ordered aout 9 quarter yards and someone had written on my invoice "What a sweet pallete!" That was kind of neat. Here is a closer look at some of the blocks. I am thinking 12 blocks by 12 blocks. I love the colors.

Henry and his mom and daddy are at the cabin now and so is Hannah - they all just got there this evening. Annie and her parents and I will be up there on Wednesday--can hardly wait to see everybody again. So anxious to see the little ones.

Thursday, July 25, 2013

Now that I have these two pieces quilted and the binding sewn on and ready to be handstitched, I am thinking about my next project which is coming from some of the fabrics I bought at the Bench garage sale last week.

I put together two snowball blocks using Kaffe Fassett fabrics from my stash which I had gone through to find all the ones that went well with the polka dot. I also ordered a few pieces from Glorious Color and they should be here today or tomorrow. This will be bright - but I think it will be pretty. The dotted fabric was part of my good stuff from the sale. It amazes me how great all the fabrics in that line go together, and how really unattractive some of them are when they stand alone but together with others- gangbusters. Most are, of course, gorgeous!

I played around with my EQ5 last night and finally got a quilt made that looks like what I am shooting for. I need lessons from Linda!! Or I could just read my book that comes with it. Didn't have lots of fabrics to choose from in my fabric library, but I think I captured the idea.

Hope I have enough of the dots to do a narrow binding and/or border. Not even sure of the size right now.

Several of my quilting friends and people reading my blog have remarked about all the projects I have worked on in the last months. I guess maybe it's because as you get this old a sense of urgency kind of sets in and you want to see if you can do some of the many things dancing around in your mind. As far as needing any of the pieces I have made, no, I don't need them - but I need to make them, I guess. When you are enthralled with fabric, color, pattern, etc., it's such a joy to spend the time working through the process of quilting or any other captivating obsession you may be afflicted with. Some of the steps aren't that much fun, I admit, but all in all it's certainly good for the soul. So I think I will continue just as I have been doing and enjoying it all while I can and being thankful for being blessed with the ability to be doing all this.

Monday, July 22, 2013

This one goes back several years - it was partially quilted. Now it's all quilted and ready for binding. Have no idea why I finished it, but when I was going through things a couple of weeks ago, I brought this upstairs. Could not even remember for sure the thread I was using. I should write that down and pin it on the piece of put thread, bobbin, etc, in a baggie and pin that on. I actually think one of the threads is not the same as what I started with, but it's a busy piece and I don't think anyone can tell. It will not be entered into anything anyway. I do like the colors, though.

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Hope I can find some of the fabric in the piece to use for binding. There would be enough of the backing fabric that will be cut off which would work. I almost have my umbrella hanging quilted, too, but was getting tired and quit for the evening. Must water some flowers.

Here is another Henry video. He is so darned cute and so busy. Children do not need many toys - they can have fun with lots of things!!!! Enjoy.

Saturday, July 20, 2013

This week was the garage sale at one of my very favorite places--The Park Bench, our newest quilt shop here in Midland. The Bench has just gorgeous fabric - sells wonderful lines and is always a feast for the eyes. The first two days of the sale fell on two of the hottest days here in Michigan in a long time. Humid, hot and horrible! However, Leslie e-mailed me and wanted to know if I would like to go on Thursday with her and Janet - and, of course, I did. We did lunch afterwards and it was good to be out! Very enjoyable time even though it was sweltering. Ann and Patty had the fabric outside on the sidewalk and had a tent set up over a cutting table. I think the girls took turns being outside on the sidewalk and inside in the cool. I found fabric for backs for the two quilttops I had in mind.

Picked out the variegated dots for the top with the star in it. It has lots of colors in it and will work well with that top.

This brown with the stripey dots looks well with the batik leaf quilt. You can save so much buying fabric on sale and it is wonderful fabric.

Today I went back - it is soooo much cooler -- and bought some more pieces. Nothing special in mind (of course!) but just picked out ones that talked to me. The first photo at the beginning of this blog has fabric with words on it in reds, greens and blues. I see that as a wonderful background for applique - maybe solids. And the piece with it I just could not turn down. In the above picture, the top piece is a polka dot Kaffe fabric - have been thinking of a snowball block quilt--the dots would make wonderful corners. The second one is just because I don't have many lights in Kaffe. The yellow polka dot just is wonderful and the little yellow with black would be a great background. Pretty ambitious purchasing for somebody almost 85 - but I will quilt as long as I can!

Here are three pieces of batiks that just needed to come home with me. All in all I am pleased with my purchases!

Dancing Umbrellas - all sewn in rows, pressed and ready to be sewn together. This is approximately 22 X 27 and is mainly made from charm squares. It will be an easy one to quilt - just outline the pieces and do some meandering or loop the loop. No border on this piece.

Sunday, July 14, 2013

Remember this quilttop? It has been together for quite a while and I have never put the back together even though I have had the fabric for a long time. This past week I have made backings for three other tops and now this quilttop has one, too. I was just a few inches shy of enough fabric without buying another width so I found enough of the background and the border fabric to solve the problem.

It was easy enough to put a 5 inch strip with the squares on the diagonal (similar to the sashing on the quilt), machine applique the squares and that was enough to make the back big enough to give the quilter plenty of excess fabric. I have two other tops that need backs and will go to the garage sale that Park Bench will have this month and hopefully be able to find something. Backing can be expensive.

I saw a quilt design on Pinterest that caught my eye. Looked like it had been made on EQ. The other day I cut pieces for a block but the background fabric is too busy.

I want to look for some fabric that has printing on it - maybe not as jumbled as this. Or I could use some small black dots on white. How things have changed - anytime we used to make applique blocks or use fabric for background in piecework, it was always white, cream or ecru - occasionally a solid color or black. I love to mix all the prints!

I think it was over a year ago that I bought this pattern when I went with some of my quilting friends to see Edyta Sitar - I love her work. I have had it in a small plastic shoebox for a long time along with some charm squares with the idea to maybe one day make a smaller version of this sweet pattern. That is what I started the other day.

The blocks are not set in stone - in fact, I have switched some out and will probably replace others - but this is the idea.

Except for cutting out the tinier pieces and trying to get the release paper off, these are so much fun to make. Choosing colors is my very favorite part of the quilt process!

One more thing - if you follow the blog that Henry's mommy writes (my granddaughter, Norah) - there is a new post with lots of cute pictures of the little cutie. And, if you check it out, pay special attention to the last couple of pictures for some sweet news!! In just a few weeks, Norah and family, Molly and family and Hannah will be in Michigan. Birthdays will be celebrated, Henry's, Norah's and mine. I am so anxious to see those two little ones - and all the bigger ones, too!!!!

Tuesday, July 9, 2013

This picture shows two very old ufo's (the pillows) that I finished while I was waiting to get back two of the things that I am so accustomed to in my life. My computer has been acting so slow and giving me problems so I finally had one of the fellows out to look it over. It had to go to the shop so that was last Thursday - and I just got it back this afternoon. Goodness, it's a bit like an addiction. I certainly missed it even though I had the Kindle to keep up on things. Typing on that is such a hard thing for me to do. I do have a stylist but I lost in in the depths of the living room sofa and cannot get to it. Then on Friday as I was heading home from Kroger with ice cream in the car, my car made an awful noise as I turned the corner. Pulled into a drive by the high school, got out, and saw my tailpipe dragging. Didn't take me but a few seconds to decide to just go for it and try to get home, dragging my tail(pipe) behind me. I made it!! Parked the little old thing (it is 15 years old with 38000 miles on it) in front of the house and just left it there. Called the garage that I take the car to and they are closed on weekends but I had it towed in first thing Monday morning. It was done by early afternoon. No problems there since I had just been grocery shopping and had enough ice cream to see me through! It is so good to have both of my belongings back in the fold!! Back to the pillows, they are over twenty years old and were made with the same fabric as the quilt on my bed. I think I quilted them several years ago, and just bought the pillow forms and put them together last week.

My little Sue quilt top is finished and ready to be backed and quilted. I really like it.

Took me a while to decide on the border, but came up with this and added a narrow piece of the yellow print batik. I just folded an inch wide strip in half, sewed it to the top then the border over it. Seems to make it pop a bit.

I need to find backing - I thought I would have plenty, but there wasn't enough. Will do that soon.

This guy is eye candy!!!! I have started watching Mad Men on Netflix and it is absolutely wonderful. I think I am in my third season and have lots and lots of episodes to go yet. There just is not much on tv so watching this really fills the bill. Usually a couple an evening - they are about 45 minutes each. Sometimes three episodes. Great story, great cast and I love it. I think this coming season is the finale.

Pieces of the Past

Here's Henry

And Here's Annie

And Here's Lauren

About Me

My name is Carol. I am a quiltaholic. I am now 85 years old and have been blessed with a wonderful family and good health. Keeping busy is no problem for me - in fact, I don't do much cleaning and cooking anymore. I have been quilting for about 35 years. Working on this computer is so amazing - how glad I am that I got in on this in my lifetime.

Funoldhag

(Selfies are in - I was gritting my teeth and taking pics of myself the other day. OMG, I hate how I look on the cellphone screen. However, there is the great delete button that you can get rid of the many bad pictures. I thought this one wasn't too bad so here is a current pic of Funoldhag.) AKA Carol---------My middle granddaughter and I used to tease and call each other silly names. She called me "the old hag" but always with a twinkle in her eye. I added "fun" to it and used it as one of my screennames.

The Start of it All

In 1972 when we moved to Overland Park, Kansas, I was given some quilt blocks by my neighbor. She knew I sewed and these had been made by her mother. She was in her 70's at that time. I put the blocks together with like white blocks. We would go to Arkansas a couple of times a year to fish and would always visit Eureka Springs, a darling little town in the Ozarks. I had never quilted but found a quilt shop there and eventually took the top to have it quilted in Arkansas. The backing and batting were included in the price of $50.00 for hand quilting. I took two other quilts down there before I finally started quilting them myself.